Some believe he’s Tennessee’s newest billionaire. The man Forbes forgot. Well, not quite. At least, not yet. Cleveland, Tenn., native W. Allan Jones, 52, is the founder of privately held Check Into Cash, the nation’s second largest payday advance company. In fact, Jones is credited with pioneering the retail concept of providing short-term cash advances for a fee, a service traditional banks simply won’t offer. When he created the business in 1993, he made the hills of Appalachia the unlikely epicenter of one of America’s fastest growing industries.

So just how wealthy is he? To best appreciate Jones’ wealth is to understand the path he took to becoming a first generation Tennessee tycoon. More...

The Rich List

Thanks mostly to small gains in stock prices and low interest rates, Tennessee’s richest got only a little richer over the past year. This expanded list of 20, which includes six billionaires, ranges in estimated wealth from $300 million to $2.6 billion. In addition to our institutional knowledge, we based our estimates on information from well-placed sources and analysis of such documents as SEC filings, property listings and valuation reports on comparable assets. More...